Soap And Suds Frothy New Tide In Laundromats

Welcome to Ringers, one of the few laundromats where you can get beer with your Cheer and one of the few bars where you`ll find a menu listing domestic brew for $1.35 a bottle, imports for $1.60 and detergent for 30 cent. Yes folks, we`re talking soap and suds, American entrepreneurial genius at its apex, the inside track on the market share. For two years Ringers has been carving its niche in this college town. It`s across the street from the largest dormitories at the University of Georgia. As a bar, it ain`t much. As a laundromat, it`s serviceable. But as a laundromat/bar, it`s doing big business.

Though the patrons seem to appreciate the dependable dryers as much as the ambiance, there`s no doubt that the kegs on tap, the sandwiches, the video games, the MTV and the soap operas blaring on the color television contribute to Ringers` success. Besides, food and drink are not terribly out of place here. In a former incarnation the building was a Crystal Burger, which had burned down.

``I heard about it when they were restoring it,`` said Wright, a senior marketing major from Nashville. ``A bunch of us were at Harry`s pizza parlor next door. We yelled at one of the workmen and said, `What`s that?` He said,

`It`s gonna be a bar/laundromat.` We said, `Whoa!```

Since Ringers opened, Wright has stopped by each Tuesday or Wednesday to wash his clothes and drown his sorrows. ``It turned out to be a place we met after class,`` Wright said.

``I like the atmosphere--being able to watch MTV, drink beer and do my laundry all at once,`` said Robert Sasloff, a history major, Class of `85, who on this day has decided to forego the wash.

Pouring beer from a pitcher into a plastic cup, Wright agreed with his friend. ``I used to go to those all-night coin laundromats,`` he explained.

``I haven`t been back since a 45-year-old woman tried to pick me up.``

In the unlikely event that anyone puts a move on him at Ringers, she`ll probably be half that age. The clientele is almost exclusively college students or, like Sasloff, recent graduates. But the truth is that no matter how dolled up they get, people come here looking for a good dryer, not Mr. Goodbar.

``I didn`t like going to laundromats until I found out about this,`` she said. ``Now, I live across town, but I still come here to do my laundry. At my apartment complex, the laundry room is itty bitty, and the dryers never work. I got stuck with wet laundry once. I`ve been to a lot of laundromats. You have to pick one you`re comfortable with.``

With that Matte, a 22-year-old senior, returned to her study of communications theory and the latest episode of ``The People`s Court.``

The idea for Ringers wasn`t original, David Tate, the manager and one of the owners, confessed. It was modelled after a place called ``Soaps`` in Chapel Hill, N.C., where Tate and the other partners in Ringers went to the University of North Carolina.

``There`s another chain called `Duds and Suds,``` he said. ``We want to start franchises in other cities. We thought next time we might go someplace with a military base. I think this is the laundromat of the future.``

In Athens it is the laundromat of the present. The busiest times are around 4 and 7:30 p.m. each day, Tate said. ``And on Friday it`s pretty much packed all day.``

To improve the sluggish morning trade Tate offers ``happy hour on detergent,`` which means the soap is free from 9 a.m. till noon. There`s also a happy hour on pitchers of beer from 4 to 7 p.m., although the discount has not offset the decline in beer sales owing to a recent rise in Georgia`s legal drinking age.

One afternoon about two dozen college kids milled about the place in various stages of wash and dry. One couple sat at the bar poring over lecture notes. On a nearby stool a guy had his head buried in the student newspaper. Another had his head buried in a video game. And across the room, two fellows sipped Cokes, nibbled Doritos and gazed absently at MTV`s steady diet of rock videos.

At a table in the middle of the room, Sam Renkin, a handsome 20-year-old advertsing major with fashionably long hair and an earring, and Michelle Berman, an equally attractive 20-year-old psychology major, rendezvoused to study while Renkin`s clothes washed. Promptly at four o`clock, Renkin rose and purchased a discounted pitcher of beer.

``We`re on a date,`` he joked, as he filled two cups. ``It`s nice because they have it set up to study.``

Problem was his eyes kept straying from the French text to MTV.

``My dad says someone`s trying to start a chain of these kinds of places,`` Michelle said.

``That`s a good idea,`` Sam replied. ``There ought to be more of them.``

He drained a cup of beer and rose from the table.

``I`ll be right back,`` he said and headed off to retrieve the Perma-press shirts from the dryer before they wrinkled.